A completely unique game

[@erichousing9315]

ideas are a dime a dozen. the idea doesn't matter, the execution is what matters. don't give up.

[@jasonjenkinson2049]

Theres like 10 million games where you are an army guy with a gun and shoot other people

[@Hietakissa]

then there's me who has to spend days coming up with the most basic game idea

[@revimfadli4666]

@@Hietakissa is there a matchmaking site for "ideas are worthless" people to meet "how tf do I even get one idea" people?

[@anuradevelopment]

exactly. the rest is looser mentality. it's all about the execution of idea in everything (art/engineering) subtle details can make a huge difference. if you rely on a "unique idea" to carry you then it's probably not the right field for you, because making games is all about eating shit, a lot of it.

[@finpark7785]

Let us know when you find one....@@revimfadli4666

[@gavinator354]

I really don't think you should limit yourself like this. Especially when the one idea you settled on and were excited about only has ONE competitor. For all you know, their game could turn out bad. Or in the process of making your own game, you figure out a way to make it 10x more fun than their game. I'm not really sure what message you were trying to send with this particular video but I hope you change your mind and keep making your climbing game. :)

[@lukemuscat]

Thanks Gavin :)

[@owenvenes]

I absolutely agree. Competition is so important and could help both you and those other devs by striving to be better, getting inspired by each other's game and so forth.

[@skepticaltile]

It's also true that in making something similar you could potentially end up with a totally new idea that branches off from your original creation. wip3out was originally an f-zero competitor if i remember correctly, then years later when no one was making those types of racing games anymore FAST came in but the devs for FAST added a twist, to change color in order to keep your momentum. that was something neither fzero or wip3out did before and because of that it feels like a totally unique experience. the original idea or invention has been dead for a long time, everything is either a remix or a mish mash of old ideas, but just because a game like FAST came from a lack of f-zero doesnt mean the two are the same at all, and one is not a replacement for the other. competition is great but innovation is even better and I think with one small addition you could make something completely revolutionary.

[@lilkangarooo]

@@lukemuscat Yeah please keep making it! I'd watch a devlog series on this if you made one!

[@revimfadli4666]

Even Overwatch and Paladins overtook each other due to subtle differences(in addition to different market segments)

[@BrandonCourt]

If I'm struggling with game ideas I just ask my boomer dad. I think people with little to no experience of gaming can come up with the most original ideas.

[@lukemuscat]

I love this, such a great idea.

[@revimfadli4666]

Reminds me of how the early days of gaming had the craziest ideas

[@triPocoPi9576]

A lack of experience makes new ideas.

[@JordanMetroidManiac]

Probably happens because gamers (typically younger than boomers) are mentally conditioned to think about how a lot of games work, but boomers and older generations are typically not exposed to it as much so they have more of a "free" mind when they think about it, even if they don't understand as much about the technical implications or possibilities. Maybe we (gamers and game devs) subconsciously develop a fear for certain things just not being possible, so our creativity becomes slightly narrower over time.

[@BrandonCourt]

​@@JordanMetroidManiac Yep you summed it up perfectly. Our minds get stuck thinking conventionally and it can be hard breaking out of that on your own.

[@TobiCreates]

That ending was brutal :D But remember just because there are action movies made in the past, nobody would stop making action movies because of that. Every week there are new action movies hitting the cinema. Think about it like this: There is no action movie made by Luke Muscat.

[@millianarakuzen]

This is such nice words of encouragement ❤

[@DanPos]

Ha how odd, I've recently starter bouldering and was thinking how cool it would be to make a bouldering game and then BAM this drops in my recommendations

[@lukemuscat]

I saw a video recently of a new climbing game that kinda looks like what I was aiming for with this, so will be super interested to see how it plays!

[@awesomeman116a]

Google knows all. Even your thoughts!

[@ashleyringrose2760]

All you needed to do was make it about 'cats' climbing and you'd be golden 🤣

[@StaredownGames]

YES! Curtain Cats! Reminds me of the movie where they were betting on which cat would fall first. Wait, THAT's how you can earn kibble on the side!

[@colehetzel5003]

@@StaredownGames get this to the top, curtain cats is the move.

[@StuCheeks]

Too real. This happens all the time. Years ago, I wanted to make a game where you play as a cat going from house to house in a neighborhood and having to climb, get through obstacles, use stealth to cause chaos for humans, etc. I know I could have put my own spin on it, but dang the pain is real when finding something has essentially already been done or knowing that someone else is going to do it better/quicker.

[@lukemuscat]

Yeah totally agree. Like a lot of commenters have said (which I agree with), you can always find your own spin etc, but I find it just personally demotivating. Certainly more about my hang ups than a market reality. But glad that some people also sympathise!

[@TropPasNet]

Oh dude ... I'm really for you to feel like that. I'm starting my own video game company and had the same feeling at the start. But you have many ways to diferentiate your game from a competitor. The art style, gameplay, levels, story telling, musics and overall feeling of the game. You don't need to have a unique idea to be unique. Everyone of us are. Try hard, never give up, don't care about competition. In the end geeks will play every game in existence. Fun video nonetheless :)

[@TropPasNet]

I'm sorry for my english it is not my native language

[@lukemuscat]

Nah this was a great comment, I could understand it perfectly. Thanks for taking the time to write it!!

[@James-ze1sn]

Unless you're just in it for the money (which is understandable honestly) I don't think you should give up already! The idea has a lot of potential and there's countless ways you can add your own spin to it and differentiate it from Klifur. keep trying!

[@SimVRGtag]

He made fruit ninja

[@w花b]

​@@SimVRGtag ok

[@slimeberry_]

he already made the bag

[@MICMON]

That dramatic end, so many emotions. 😮😢😂 Great editing Luke.

[@johnleorid]

With a single idea it will be very very hard to find something you really want to make that wasn't made before. But once you start combining ideas, it's quite easy to walk into new, undiscovered territory. Once there you have so simplify both ideas you want to combine so they work together without forming a game that has the complexity of both inspirations. That's tricky and a lot of work because you have to essentially make two games and then try to strip away features until you have the perfect mix. Rollerdrome has some good talks about their game design and how they tackled this problem (of added complexity). Hope that helps. ^^

[@DreamingConcepts]

How about tree climbing, then cutting the fruits from that tree like a ninja.

[@eliassolorzano9228]

Man this was exactly the type of content I was looking for, keep up the good work mate👍

[@dennismakesgames]

Very fun video, and great game idea. Fun fact, the reason I got into climbing was actually to make a game, about 1.5 years ago I went to a bouldering gym with the mindset of translating it into a game. Back then it didn't happen, but I can't really let go of the idea, so I have been trying different stuff out.

[@lukemuscat]

Ha that's awesome! Do you still climb?

[@dennismakesgames]

@@lukemuscat Yeah I climb 2-3 a week, and have been for 1 and a half year now. Thanks for asking :)

[@soggy_dev]

Flash forward and A Difficult Game About Climbing proved there was still room in the market for a game like this 😅

[@Raderade1-pt3om]

It's not always about who did it first but who did it best.

[@josephmpyana]

Your passion alone is reason enough to make the game, also I like watching your dev logs soooooo MAKE THE DARN GAME........ plz 🙂

[@darkly77]

I hope you were kidding about chucking out your project! 🤗 I'm a hobby writer and every so often I get to a point where I'm like, "why am I writing, someone else has already said this"... but they didn't say it in my voice, with my style, and with the particular experiences I want to share. If it means enough to you to pursue it in the first place, it's still worth pursuing. Especially if it's something you haven't really tried before

[@Tend0freak]

It really is the epitome of creativity. Everyone seems to be making the same platformer/souls like over and over again, not creating anything original themselves. But when you try to come up with a new idea, you find out how hard it is to find anything new at all.

[@murrylancashire]

Haha, Lovely to see you have a youtube channel now!!! One of my core beliefs about originality moving forward, when there are just so many creatives out there is that complexity and originality have to have some relationship. I don't mean in terms of that a game idea, or the loop needs to be complex, but when taken in as a gestalt, the amount of creative decisions that go into a game, if allowed to naturally build on one another you will end up at a unique place that is worthy of it's own experience. Take rainworld for example. That thing is so complex it can't help be original, and if any other creative was to embark on making a complex world simulation, there is no way it would end up in the same ballpark. So even if you have similar starting points, if you allow yourself to trust your tastes and design decisions, you'll make something unique in the end. I love minimalism, but the price for democratizing creation, and having a gigantic influx of creatives is that they also have good ideas, and they also will make things. Same thing has happened in music, it's an exhausting task thinking of a band name that hasn't taken, so much so the joke is "think of a cool band name, then go listen to what they sound like", because chances are it's taken. When we were working on iphone, it was a fresh market, and we were first movers, and in many ways it's hard to reconcile that maybe we don't actually have that advantage anymore.

[@lukemuscat]

Yeah great points, it makes me think of novels as well. There are a million murder mystery books, but it's really the cumulative details that make each feel like a different story. Early smart phone really was a different world, and the possibility space was so fresh! Hope you are doing well mate, it's been ages!!!

[@murrylancashire]

@@lukemuscat I’m doing well! I’m not in games atm but I’m doing a ton of art. Might be a move back to them at some point though 😅

[@moortezaa3397]

Dayum, they made it. But there are multiple versions of a game, we could have two versions. And they are both original.

[@boxitor9355]

Im actually so happy that you mentioned toribash because i thought no one knew that game

[@Ghareebz]

idea's grows with time the simple idea you make maybe a clone of another idea , but with time new features comes to make the game unique from it's competition

[@amongus-cj4cs]

I think its the novelty and excitement of an original idea that drives someone to have motivation and feel inspired. When somethings already been made, the reward seems less exciting feeling as if you are tracing the same path as someone else.

[@Skeffles]

Great video! It's so hard to come up with unique ideas. This whole thing just reminded me of GIRP.

[@Alayric]

Last year I was playing Carmageddon and thought that maybe I could mix Vampire Survivors with Carmageddon, I thought of some Carmageddon weapons that would suit the genre... mines... a flail tail... minigun... Then I saw your Sir Truck video that was published 2 weeks before :D

[@waldo109]

Bennet Foddy also made a great physics climbing game like this (and like his game QWOP) in 2011 called GIRP. I had an idea like this too a while ago and then when I found GIRP I was like "oop, it's already been done!" But really, there are lots of ways you can take this core idea and make it your own. :)

[@lukemuscat]

GIRP is in the video! :) And yeah you are totally right, there are a million ways to approach this, it's certainly more of a personal hang up of mine than any kind of actual barrier.

[@ashburn9121]

What a twist. I thought I clicked on a game dev log video, turns out it's a promotional video on a VERY cool game 😂 Thank you

[@ivo]

Holly *ucking s*it I've been trying to remember/find Does Not Commute for AGES literal AGES!! THANK YOU!

[@alexmazvi]

There can always be a plot twist that can make your game better or as good than other similar ones. 16 bit era has hundreds if not thousands of platforming games with similar mechanics and still made it to the market anyways.

[@thefunnybuddy4138]

"Good artist copy. Great artist steal" - Sun Tzu probably

[@sevehayden1463]

If only one or two people have used an idea, you can still twist it into something no-one's done yet.

[@jockcox]

Got excited to play that birdwatching game, but it's been abandoned.

[@accentedreality]

Writing is like this too. I had 60+ pages on a super unique project in 2015 called... "Designated Survivor" 🙃 Thanks ABC.

[@GamerReality]

I see the story you were trying to tell with the video, but I think that you can make a unique game idea. It was a sad and funny ending where you found someone making the exact same thing. If you do this again, combine too ideas. We've never seen a climbing game where the character is underwater and they need to actually climb down, or on a whale, or on turtles. There are so many new games to make!

[@juicedup14]

Could add a twist like you need to swat away brids flies or your not a human, youre a weird spider thing

[@AdamS-lo9mr]

everything has been done, but it hasn't always been done right.

[@crazyboby736]

One of the most under rated game dev channels 😂

[@nanodotgif]

I had the exact same thing happen to me lol, except 6 months into development😭😭

[@lukemuscat]

Oof, I'm sorry to hear that :(

[@Esionaly]

I was going to say "he is probably trying to make something like peaks of yore or klifur"

[@darkxkai5754]

Toribash is my die hard game ive been playing it for 10 years and even got global rank 8 at one point, do more videos about toribash, its super underrated

[@nicksohacki7114]

There's a pretty good game that captures the essence of climbing called "A New Heights"

[@nokkturnaldev]

Toribash! Christ the amount of hours that I spent in that game when I was a kid.

[@ThisIsLumpi]

The ending was so sad, but kinda funny.

[@crosline]

Rock Life: The Rock Simulator came in my mind at the beginning :')

[@dogukankuru1969]

dude when you started talking about climbing games i was like "heh! there is already toribash parkour!" I WAS NOT EXPECTING you to know toribash :D daaamn

[@lukemuscat]

That era of free indie physics games is probably my favourite moment in gaming!

[@dogukankuru1969]

@@lukemuscat i am kind of like a toribash veteran myself man :]

[@tuanmemes]

Man who create fruit ninja played toribash before? Man Im so happy

[@FinalTurn]

Great Vid as always Luke! One thing I'm wondering is if you may be shooting yourself in the foot by having such a broad definition of a game. The rock climbing is an interesting mechanic but is that enough to define a game? It's like if you were working on a walking sim and got discouraged because there was walking in another game. Looking forward to future vids!

[@lukemuscat]

Yep a totally great point!

[@YaM8Kraken]

If you outdo someone in a project then I feel like you shouldn't be penalized for launching it. Other gaming industries just have such an overly dramatic scheme about cancelling practices that it truly ruins the variety on the internet. Everyone in the mobile game industry doing the exact same thing (milking from trends) is an exception to this rule owing to the fact that you can still change the way people see the concept of a certain project, even if it was taken from someone else, or as you did, was seen flowering beforehand. Adding such projects to your resume is not a big issue if you manage to surprise another rival on how astonishing of a founding lies in your game. Nothing is more satisfying than having to see someone else doing better, allowing you to understand what you should consider next time which is simply how the industry evolved in the first place. But if these companies still succumb to the same greedy scheme they have on the matter then we shouldn't be surprised that they end up dissappointing their communities after all.😑 Even if we are in a cooparative contract era, there's still a lot of cuss between the minds.

[@StaredownGames]

Hold your own one-man game jams. GREAT idea generators! There's new-fangled AI or classic -idea can shooting range- draw from a hat, too!

[@WalaberEntertainment]

I literally did everything in this video, in the same order myself. although I still want to make a climbing game some day too :P

[@lukemuscat]

Haha, I had totally thought about Gymnast as well when I was thinking about controls! I can imagine that something like this would be way up your alley.

[@mikulusaurus]

Toribash was the best! I was terrible at it, but I played for hours as a kid back in the mid to late 2000's😁

[@suchsneak3545]

I'm late to the party but my outlook towards game design is not to be original but to be creative. Take and borrow ideas from climbing games you love to make something new that you'd enjoy playing or set up limitations to make things interesting like a climbing game set in dark cramped caves with flashlights and limited supplies or a climbing game with constantly rotating gravity. Hope you keep at it, good luck!

[@lukemuscat]

"dark cramped caves with flashlights and limited supplies" ... have you been watching me through my window while I work on the next prototype?!

[@suchsneak3545]

@@lukemuscat What can I say lol, great minds think alike! 😄 Looking forward to seeing it

[@legend4646]

toribash ruled! cool to see it still around :)

[@Ulteam8]

That happened to me, I was thinking about top down stealth game with bushes, sound, closets and vents aaaaand the Intravenous cames out. I'm not a game developer but I was thinking about to start it.

[@zyphonwhite9853]

Really amazing video. I've been having similar problems with my own projects, humans are just too damn creative

[@ThomasStewartDev]

Haha great vid! I've been going to the rock gym for a couple of years now, and I'm just starting to get into outdoor climbing

[@lukemuscat]

Awesome! I did only gym climbing for about 18 months and always thought "eh, outdoors doesn't really appeal to me". But after getting comfortable with outdoors, I really fell for it. I love having long term projects that you know will be there forever!

[@ChuckSploder]

I had this idea but I didn't make it because I only use Scratch

[@nelly5954]

GIRP is the most realistic climbing game I've played, when it comes to campusing a bunch of jugs. Problem is, there's more to climbing than that. As with most of Bennet Foddy's work, see it as an invitation to elaborate.

[@swaggy3987]

make a game where there’s a jellybean jar, a hand, and a mouth, and the goal of the game is to pick out every jellybean from the jar and eat it. but you have to guide your hand using these explicit physics movements. …and if you drop one jellybean you lose and have to start over 😂😂😂

[@AlexStrook]

Great video as always! Love your content!

[@RevTheGame]

I had the same thing happen with a word game I made. It combined word search with tetris blocks. Little did I know that there was a physical version of this idea released a decade ago called Pathwords.

[@lukemuscat]

Haha oh that is brutal. When we made Crash Club, a game released 1 week before us that was super similar and even had a similar name (Crash of Cars). Absolutely wrecked us haha.

[@casso_4974]

First thing I thought of when he talked about the climbing game was “Didn’t Klifur do this??”

[@tastysnak]

Well that's just heartbreaking. 😢

[@Pepeutra]

"Like many nerds, I love climbing" I'm sorry, _w h a t ?_ It's like saying "Like many gym bros, I love collecting funko pops"

[@ARandomHumanBein]

It's not a problem if your game isn't unique!

[@luiscruz11]

Great video! you got a new subscriber :)

[@quaweds]

I wish Modern Warfare creators would do this when finding out there are other FPS games out there.

[@bigedwerd]

Final frame: Every fps looking at every other fps

[@birdlegscass]

oh my god that ending was painful ;-; too real, way too real

[@erichbauer3991]

Mount your friends(2014) exists too, it's a bit more of a... wacky, lets go with that, take on climbing but uses the same basic system of controlling limbs ik target to climb things. I still think you can totally go with this idea tho, maybe add some twist like a gun or detachable limbs if you really want to distinguish yourself but considering that this kind of game isn't super saturated yet you might not even need to do that.

[@smarshian]

Great vid! Fun & interesting journey.

[@matthewberger270]

:( I was rooting for you the whole video man

[@abidounesaad3780]

funniest devlog I've ever seen 🤣🤣

[@nocapsbb]

Haha love this. Was just saying how there need to be more realistic climbing games

[@hypemugen]

I laughed so hard at the "speaking simulator" part. It's absurd that so many ideas have already been made, but this was just absolutely ridiculous lmao

[@GrouchoDuke]

So good, Luke. Funny & thoughtful, as always!

[@DocGeraud]

Amazing videos man, I really like your content and your games are awesome! I would have love to see your take on a climbing game 😅 And you're doing all that work on your own + you're a climber, NICE 👌

[@CarlosGotAnimated]

I love this channel so much.

[@3-50]

Ahah during the last half of the video I thought « should I tell him?… » glad I didn’t have to 😅

[@dogbot55]

100% accuracy with nerds climbing

[@radioactivesterling6139]

well, that was quite the twist

[@CircusFreaks666]

So. I have to combine ideas with each other. Like rollerdome or metroidvania games. Mashing game genres. Or like jetpack joyride.

[@WibleWobble]

jetpack joyride + pokemon + minecraft

[@CircusFreaks666]

@@WibleWobble you know what you will get?

[@WibleWobble]

@@CircusFreaks666 what

[@CircusFreaks666]

@@WibleWobble My PP

[@CircusFreaks666]

Pls Forgive me. I am having a rough time. My gay woman left me. You know why?

[@revimfadli4666]

At least you can blend it with... *Vampire Survivors*

[@lukemuscat]

Vampire Sur-Climbers?

[@revimfadli4666]

@@lukemuscat yes, complete with casino pizazz

[@raenfox]

At this point, I don't try to create anything new anymore. Humans have existed for so long that everything anyone can think of has already been done. If someone comes up with something that's completely new it's either because only now does the technology and knowledge exist to do it, or it's been done before but nobody remembers. So yea, just do what you want.

[@jacobfrerichs3167]

your ideas are just too good, you need worse ideas that people have thought of but havent done because theyre crappy ideas

[@thelivingstickman7158]

I was not expecting toribash

[@michaeldobele2622]

this game idea is a really good one

[@hrvbox]

noooo i really want to play your version

[@robertbrown1338]

This kind of reminds me Heavenly Bodies! you should play this! its a really hard zero-gravity space game!

[@lukemuscat]

Oh I've been meaning to play that, thanks for the reminder!

[@robertbrown1338]

@@lukemuscat honestly the whole weight transfer thing you were going for sounds exactly like heavenly bodies except in earth gravity - it's a real mix of fun, challenging weight transfer and Newtonian physics, and puzzle..highly recommended

[@NoneNullAnd0]

I don't mean to be discourage you, but I think coming up with a unique idea is EXTREMELY important. Execution carries a lot of successful games, but the massive amount of effort it takes to perform such incredible execution doesn't compare to the amount of effort required to come up with a good idea. That said, it can be really hard to come up with a SINGULAR idea that hasn't been done before. It's way easier to take two preexisting ideas and mix them together. For example, let's mix your first and last ideas of controlling multiple cars and climbing together: How about a game in which you control a bunch of climbers and the routes they take up a cliff. You want to get as many of them to the top as fast as possible, but cliff sections will erode with use and multiple climbers in one spot will cause sections of the cliff to fall away.

[@lukemuscat]

Haha this is a super cool idea, I can kinda see it instantly in my mind!

[@tyinplop6356]

if people stopped making games just because it seems to be tangentially derived from another game, 99% of our favorite games wouldn't exist. just make something that you have fun playing and others will probably think its fun too

[@mymind3556]

The creativity doesn't exist

[@NeZversSounds]

Use those games as inspiration and look at them, what you would do differently.

[@Wayclarke]

Biggest plot twist of 2023.

[@sumbuddy4088]

People always say that everyone is unique, but we all seem to only like making the same stuff over and over again.

[@nfgwaka1343]

Was this just a teaser video for the cave diving game 🤯

[@lukemuscat]

Haha, well spotted!

[@rufarokembo]

IS THIS SOME KIND OF POSITIVITY CULT

[@tekunova5984]

Don't just give up on an idea because someone has done something similar! Take a look at music for example; there are lots of similar ideas and similar sounding songs, but none of them are truly the same as another! Just like how Skater XL and Skate aren't the same game but have similar premises, your game doesn't have to be exactly like Klifur. Even if it's very similar, it's not like you're stealing an idea from the creator or anything like that! If you're constantly trying to be perfectly unique, you'll throw away so many good ideas and so many opportunities for success. Bouncing off of other people's ideas is the best way to innovate and make something unique :)

[@isaacfullerton]

I was literally saying to myself, toribash toribash toribash. Nice!

[@bennyjackson5149]

Hey have you play the difficult game about climbing yet? I'd love to know your thoughts on it!